“My pleadings,” writes Mr. Howe, “were so successful that the court declared itself incompetent to judge the case, and fined his lordship 100 francs, and condemned him to all the expenses of that court and those of the preceding chambers.

“The judgment was read on the 3rd of May. On the 10th I received notice that the bishop had appealed to the Imperial Tribunal, and demanded that the previous judgment should be rescinded.

“This tribunal met on the 16th, when I objected to one of the judges, giving as my reasons that an intimacy existed between him and the bishop, which rendered his sitting as a judge in the case illegal. My objection was sustained by the court.

“On the 17th, I objected to his lordship’s advocate, as being under the sentence of banishment for political offences, and by which he had forfeited his civil rights. This was also sustained by the court.

“On the 26th, the bishop himself appeared to plead his own cause, and he likewise objected to one of the judges, but his objection was overruled. Suffice it to say, that after having made several unsuccessful attempts to prove my defence unsound, the bishop beat a retreat, and said that if I would consent to submit my cause to arbitration he would withdraw the action. I demanded that his cause, to which this is an answer, should be submitted to the same test, and he consented.

“The court then retired, and on its return announced its judgment to be, that the decisions of the previous courts were sustained, and that the bishop should pay all the expenses of this appeal, as well as the expenses of the previous courts. By this step his lordship cannot appeal again, either to the administration here, or to the Court of Cassation in France.”

It is gratifying to learn, that through this long and painful affair, our missionary not only had the countenance of the British and American consuls, and the fervent prayers of the native converts, both in public and private, but that even the French officers, greatly to their honour, openly expressed their sympathy.

In order more fully to appreciate the result of this protracted contest, it should be borne in mind that the real point at issue was, whether the cause of Protestant Christianity, as represented by Mr. Howe, should be permitted to hold a footing in the island; that Mr. Howe stood alone, unsustained, excepting by a stedfast confidence in the justice of his cause, and the generous aid and sympathy of friends, French, English, and native, who rallied round him in the time of need; that his potent adversary could reasonably calculate on the countenance and encouragement of the authorities, who, as Frenchmen and Roman Catholics, would naturally be disposed to favour the interests of their own church, and to repress what they had been taught to regard as heresy. But in the providence of God, the presiding judges of the French tribunals before which the cause was heard magnanimously regardless of all prejudices on the score of nationality or religion, delivered a judgment which, while completely exculpating the accused, reflected the highest honour upon their own discernment, impartiality, and justice. While, therefore we devoutly recognise the hand of God so conspicuously manifest in overruling and directing this trial, or rather series of trials, to so merciful an issue, we would add the expression of our hope and belief that so long as the cause of Protestant Christianity is represented in Tahiti by men like-minded with Mr. Howe, and so long as the courts of justice on the island are presided over by men who, without fear or favour, dispense their judgments in accordance with the principles of truth and equity, the light of the gospel, which has for so many years made glad the hills and valleys of Tahiti, can never be extinguished.

FOOTNOTES:

[L] Wilkes’s Tahiti, etc.